COVID-19 Policy Update #177
COVID-19 Policy Update
MONDAY 1/11
Tonight's update pairs well with Georgia On My Mind in honor of the Senate results last week. And given the arrests coming out of last week's insurrection, one might try a glass of 19 Crimes The Banished.
TOP THREE
Biden COVID Testing Plan for Schools: Biden team's multibillion-dollar school testing plan takes shape
The proposal under consideration calls for the federal government to cover the cost of providing tests to K-12 schools throughout the country.
The developing plan closely tracks with a recent Rockefeller Foundation report.
One person close to the deliberations pegged the cost at between $8 billion and $10 billion over an initial three-month period. Testing all students once a week and teachers twice a week, at an estimated cost of $42.5 billion for the remainder of the current school year.
"It's certainly the presumption of the Biden effort that there will be an opportunity for him to pass an economic stimulus Covid relief bill in the first 100 days, and in that bill should be money for schools," the person close to the deliberations said.
Officials haven’t determined how to incorporate private schools into the proposal, or what incentives are needed to get states and localities to follow the recommendations.
Also, Politico reports: "Biden dresses down his Covid team over plans to speed vaccinations"
Districts Prepare Full-time, Post-Pandemic Online Learning Programs:
Virtual schooling now a permanent option for Clarksville-Montgomery County families in Tennessee.
Some school districts are making that an option for parents next school year. Many districts were considering it before the pandemic even started, and had to speed up their plans to make it happen during COVID-19.
"We’re seeing anywhere from 30 to 40 at every grade level, K-12, that are interested in the program," said Anthony Padrnos, the executive director of technology at Osseo Area Schools.
"I think the pandemic has also offered an opportunity for families to experience the good, bad and ugly of what learning remotely and online learning looks like," Padrnos said.
Osseo Schools say they’ll be building the online school from the ground up by hiring teachers, administration staff and counselors specifically for the program.
California: LAUSD says students must have the COVID vaccine before returning to campus.
FEDERAL
Congress:
Ways and Means Democrats release Framework to Achieve Health and Economic Equity
FBI: Issued an alert that warned of plans for armed protests at all 50 state capitals and in D.C. in the days leading up to next week's inauguration, and a vast swath of downtown Washington will close on Wednesday — six days early.
COVID-19 RESEARCH
Vaccine Hesitancy:
Viral immunologist Dr. Kizzmekia Corbett helped lead the NIH team that developed Moderna’s coronavirus vaccine, was there as the Rev. Jesse Jackson was vaccinated, part of an effort to combat Black community distrust.
IHME on overcoming vaccine hesitancy
False Reports of a New ‘U.S. Variant’ Came From White House Task Force: Reports of a highly contagious new variant, published on Friday by multiple news outlets, were based on speculative statements made by Dr. Deborah Birx.
New Variant: If you want to see what happens when B.1.1.7 becomes the dominant strain, you can look at Ireland, now the highest new cases per capita globally.
Ensuring Equity in COVID-19 Planning, Response, and Recovery Decision Making: An equity toolkit for health departments.
State Vaccination Prioritization:
Utah includes teachers in their first priority group.
States have also prioritized K-12 and childcare personnel, one of ACIP’s frontline worker categories for Phase 1b. In addition to the 15 states that follow ACIP’s recommendations and the 8 that expand upon these groups (and therefore include educators), 8 states that define a more limited group of frontline workers in this phase do include educators.
Business Insider reviewed vaccine data from the 10 states with the most Black residents as a percentage of their populations.
Six of those states publish vaccination data by race. In all six, vaccinations for Black people and other minorities lagged behind vaccinations for white people.
In three of those states, a disproportionate number of shots went to white people relative to their share of the state's population, while the other three didn't provide enough data to make a comparison.`
STATE
Arizona: OpEd: Great schools innovate to teach our kids successfully during and beyond this pandemic
Florida:
Miami-Dade Schools to offer mobile coronavirus testing for children.
Remote learners are 'falling behind' in-person peers, according to Escambia, Santa Rosa schools
Hawaii: Teachers begin receiving their vaccines.
Michigan: Joint statement from AFT-Michigan, Michigan Association of School Boards, Michigan Association of Superintendents and Administrators, Middle Cities Education Association, and Michigan Education Association.
"Combined with educators being up next for vaccination against the disease, it’s time to work together to plan how to safely reopen schools."
"The keys to that sentence are safety and planning. Even with vaccinations and declining infections, we must continue to take aggressive steps to mitigate spread of the virus."
"With a new variant of the virus on the rise however, we must remain vigilant and be 100% committed to safety measures as we monitor local health data."
New York: UFT announces program to speed up teachers' access to coronavirus vaccine.
Under the agreement, the UFT will survey all its members to develop a list of those who want the vaccine immediately, prioritizing personnel with a current in-school assignment.
“Thousands of vaccine doses sit idle, or are even wasted, as the current system leaves health care providers waiting and hoping for eligible recipients to show up. We are creating a pool of members who opt-in, who want the vaccine, and then will match them to providers who have vaccines available.”
Ohio: K-12 teachers could begin receiving the COVID-19 vaccine as early as Feb. 1, provided their districts agree to return to in-person or hybrid learning by March.
Pennsylvania: Philadelphia school leaders confident schools will reopen this year.
Schools Superintendent William Hite said, "Within two weeks the district is likely to open some schools in each area of the city for students with disabilities who need services that are difficult or impossible to deliver virtually, such as occupational and physical therapy."
"In addition to younger students, Hite is concerned about older students in career and technical education classes who need hands-on experience in order to accumulate enough hours for certification in their chosen field. “They have required hours on equipment that is only available in schools."
Texas: Public school pre-K enrollment tumbles 22%
Utah: Senate President Adams called on the Salt Lake City School District to provide in-person learning options for all students "immediately." In a statement, Adams said K-12 educators will be eligible for COVID-19 vaccines starting today. "The excuses need to end at once."
Virginia: Teachers eligible to receive the vaccine.
INTERNATIONAL
Canada: Parents and teachers struggle to balance work and online school
In Burlington, Jennifer Dibben said she "felt like crying" when she learned schools wouldn't re-open on Monday. She has no option but to work from home so she can supervise her two young kids.
"It's demolishing my career," said Dibben, a dental technician.
"It's not much of a choice," said Langille. The dental clinic where she works provides essential services, but she isn't eligible for emergency childcare. Her husband is a truck driver, and can't stay home.
Dibben says the lockdown forces women into difficult career situations, where they are often the ones staying home while their partner works.
"Women generally make the concessions," she said.
UK:
No firm evidence that closing schools reduces the spread of coronavirus, say leading British scientists
How England’s schools are coping with sudden move to remote learning
When UK prime minister Boris Johnson closed all schools in England on Monday evening in an attempt to contain the rapid spread of coronavirus, teachers had barely 12 hours’ notice to completely rewrite their plans for the term.
'Last Wednesday Mr Williamson said the government had “significantly stepped up” digital support, delivering 560,000 of 1m promised laptops to schools and colleges since last spring and would deliver a further 100,000 this week."
"Government guidance specifies that families with only one key worker parent can send their children to school, and confused messaging in the last week has urged parents to keep children home if they can while forbidding schools from restricting numbers."
Independent SAGE: Released new report on closing/reopening:
"With the emergence and spread of the new B117 Covid-19 variant, which appears to be more transmissible in adults and children alike6 , the importance of schools for the overall spread of infection in the community has become more apparent."
"The crux of the issue is the need to implement the basic mitigation measures in the school environment: spatial distancing, good ventilation, masks, and hygiene measures."
"Testing itself is meaningless without a clear pathway of response to a positive or negative test result. Further, it makes little sense to put one’s efforts into identifying infections without first seeking to minimise them."
"The President of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, Adrian James, has estimated that COVID-19 will lead to some 10 million people, including 1.5 million children, needing extra mental health support."
"Independent SAGE agrees with all those who insist that maintaining children’s education should be a major priority during this pandemic and that schools should be last to close and first to open in any COVID control strategy."
"Tragically we are currently in a situation where our schools are a major source of infection transmission and where regaining control of the pandemic is only possible if they are temporarily closed"
ECONOMIC RECOVERY
Affordable Housing: Amazon Launches $2 billion housing equity fund to make over 20,000 affordable homes available for families in communities.
Minimum Wage: Update:
On Jan. 1, 20 states and 32 cities and counties raised their minimum wage. Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, South Dakota, Vermont and Washington.
Later this year, an additional five states and 18 localities are set to raise their minimum wage, and by 2026, 42% of U.S. workers will be covered by $15 minimum wage laws.
The Biden Skills Agenda: Needs work argues AEI's Brent Orrell and Mason Bishop
RESOURCES
Schools Reopening or Staying Remote: Via the WSJ
Overhead Cameras: A new app allows teachers to use their iPhone or iPad as an overhead camera on Zoom
The Next Zoom: Wants to be nothing like Zoom
Mental Health Innovation is Important for Economic Recovery and Upward Mobility: Via Brookings
Why Facts Don't Change Our Minds: New discoveries about the human mind show the limitations of reason. Well worth reading the whole piece which was written in 2017:
Sloman and Fernbach see in this result a little candle for a dark world. If we—or our friends or the pundits on CNN—spent less time pontificating and more trying to work through the implications of policy proposals, we’d realize how clueless we are and moderate our views. This, they write, “may be the only form of thinking that will shatter the illusion of explanatory depth and change people’s attitudes.”
Just a Bear: Trying to get a flag. #Grit